Human stones, e.g., urinary stones, can form in the human body, e.g., in the human urinary system from minerals in the urine. For the sake of conciseness, the subsequent discussion will focus on urinary stones. However, the below said is similar applicable to other human stones (e.g., bile stones, pancreatic stones, salivary stones or gall stones).
Urinary stones can cause painful and potentially harmful conditions. Therefore, removal of urinary stones can be indicated. For this purpose, there exist different techniques involving different medical devices. In some examples, a medical device (e.g., a ureteroscope) can be adapted to deliver ablation energy (e.g., ablation energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation) to the urinary stone. The ablation energy causes disintegration of the human stone (lithotripsy). The debris of the human stone can subsequently be removed or leave the human body through the urinary system.
The disintegration of human stones can require a substantial amount of ablation energy. In addition, the lithotripsy treatment is frequently involves an endoscopic procedure. During this procedure, a medical practitioner might not have clear sight of a treatment site including the urinary stone (for instance, a urinary stone located in a ureter) to be disintegrated. This limited visual access in combination with the involved high energies can lead to complications including damaging of tissue by applying ablative energy. For instance, applying ablative energy can perforate walls of the urinary system. In order to avoid such complications, techniques are required to detect whether a medical device for lithotripsy is located at or near a human stone or not.